How to Optimize your Conversion Funnel

So, you want an e-commerce funnel with high conversion rates? Who doesn’t anyway? The goal of optimizing your conversion funnel is to get users deep into the funnel. The success of your online business may hinge on your ability to do it right.

Here are some steps of how to effectively optimize your conversion funnel.

1. Identify areas for improvement

In an ideal world, a funnel should deliver 100% of what goes in at the top. However, since we do not live in such a world, conversion funnels leak at every step. The first step in funnel optimizationis identifying this “leaks”. You need to track the journey of a customer through the funnel from discovery to when they eventually pay you.

To see the breakdown of users going through your funnel, use funnel analytics tools like Google Analytics, Amplitude, Mixpanel or Kissmetrics.

2. Prioritize one funnel step to go after

There is always room for improvement no matter what your conversion rate is. Here are three things that should help you decide which leak you need to plug in first.

Common sense – When you have the entire picture of your conversion funnel, the biggest leaks, which can be the biggest win opportunities, are pretty obvious.

Company goals – Before focusing on any level of the funnel, consider the metrics that matter most to your business. If your bottom line is user growth at all costs, concentrate on the upper funnel, but if revenue precedes total user growth, it makes more sense to focus on the bottom funnel.

Reach – To have the greatest impact in conversion funnel optimization, the focus should be higher up in the funnel. This is where your optimizations can affect the most people.

3. Investigate the problem

After picking the funnel step to focus on, really dig into that problem and find a solution. You can use the following tactics to learn more about the problem.

Surveys

Live chat

Playback sessions

Customer development

4. Brainstorm and test solutions

With problems identified, it’s time to brainstorm and test solutions to push the conversion rates up. Rank your ideas based on potential impact and time required to execute. You need to prioritize the ideas with low time investment and high potential impact.

5. See if your ideas worked

Once you’ve implemented your ideas, go back to your analytics tools to see if they worked. If an idea worked towards your goal, implement it then move on to the next growth idea.

6. Rinse and repeat

Conversion funnel optimization is a continuous process. The trick to achieving real and sustainable growth is a repetition of the process.